Saturday, October 31, 2009

Man man shuo! Speak slower!

I have now completed my first full week of teaching English classes. I have eight classes each week and every one is a different section of students. I have them for 1.5 hours with a 10 minute break in the middle. Each class has about fifty students, but this tends to be around 51-53 students each period.

My English name is…

Some of them have English names already, but there were also some classes that I had to name. I would list a bunch of names on the board and they could pick one, find one on my sheets, or think of something on their own.

Most popular names: Lily, Anna, Eileen, Selina (singer from S.H.E), Mike, Jack, and Tony.
Strangest/ funniest names: Snow, Rain, Santa, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tracy McGrady (I have several), Kobe (I have many), King (as in James… I have three of these).

This never ceases to amaze me.

And so on…

Teaching is fun so far though. The second class we are doing some dialogues and going over the pronunciations that confuse the students. Then I went over things like nicknames, how to pronounce the Boston Celtics, and taught them some college- related vocabulary.

When they list their hobbies (or any sort of list, actually) I can say that most students end their sentences with “and so on…”

For example, “My hobbies are to read books, sleep, play basketball…. And so on.” (a lot of them list sleeping under hobbies too!)

I started keeping a tally for one girl and she said it three times in one dialogue.

Another odd thing they all say is when they begin their little dialogues, they all start it with “Very pleased to meet you/ very pleased to meet you too.” Who says that?! Even more, which English book here taught them?!

Explaining Halloween

It was fun to explain Halloween to them, but I had a lot of problems explaining what a ‘costume’ was. Firstly because they mixed up ‘custom’ and ‘costume’, but mainly just because it is too weird for them to imagine. Surely they now think that all Americans are totally crazy.

I also told them about carving pumpkins, telling ghost stories, spiders and bats… it was fun and they were getting kind of scared since the electricity was out on campus. Then the wind blew and the door to my classroom flew open and the girls squealed! Fortunately the lights came on in the late afternoon so I hope no one had nightmares.

It also took me a while to explain what “Trick or Treat” meant but then they all went crazy when they found out I had brought candy for all of them. They like to applaud for things like this.

Halloween in Qingdao tonight. I am going as 80s girl in this rockin’ sweatshirt that says “Frannie says relax” with purple tights!

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Best Sweatshirt Ever?




I bought this sweatshirt at a store in Li Cun, a nearby town. I bargained it down to 25 RMB and then was told I was very “li hi” (talented) at bargaining. I would have paid a lot more kuai for this shirt because it is just that great. Oh and then we got into a discussion about how I look Chinese but not Chinese. Again.

Monday, October 26, 2009

I am not a Chinese

I’m starting to get annoyed by the fact that I don’t look American enough and that I also look too Chinese. The guards at the gate always stop me asking for my student ID and then don’t really believe me when I say I’m a foreign teacher. This only happens when I am not with the other American teachers. Other professors here also don’t believe me when I say I’m a teacher because I kind of blend in with the students.

At the same time, when they see me on the street they know I’m not Chinese. I look so obviously Singaporean, or hua ren, overseas Chinese. I also don’t dress like a Chinese person and act pretty differently, even when not speaking.

I guess I should start using the big ‘c’ Chinese and little ‘c’ chinese.

I also got asked by students in both of my Friday classes why my hair wasn’t blonde. They don’t really understand the concept of being Chinese-American. It’s either you’re Chinese or you’re American. They honestly think I should have blonde hair and don’t understand why I don’t live in China or Singapore.

So on the whole, I’m having a good time here but this was just something that has become a daily struggle for me. I don’t look American enough to fully warrant myself as an English teacher but at the same time, am not Chinese enough to be one of them, obviously.

This reminds me of a quote I read when I was in high school and it said:

“For it is us, the hyphenated ones [Asian-Americans] living in the middle and getting the best of both worlds.”

Swine Flu!

Everyone in China is a little caught up about the swine flu and it’s kind of understandable after SARS. On the plane I was kind of paranoid because I was coughing up a storm after catching back-to-back colds, the latter from my adorable, yet incredibly infectious nephew.

Airport Scanners

When I arrived at Beijing and walked to the customs area, there was a medical screening area where they had these mounted thermal temperature scanners pointed at the crowd. I guess that whenever there is someone that turns up a bit in the red, they are pulled aside to the curtained medical area right behind. There was another second check where we submitted these forms that had questions like “Have you had contact with anyone with the flu in the past seven days?” and “Have you had contact with pigs?” Um, no.

My Non-Quarantine

I was supposed to be under a “voluntary” seven-day quarantine upon arrival. The other American teachers were pretty limited to the apartment building for a week, but since I arrived a lot later and the threat of swine is a little decreased, I wasn’t really quarantined and just won’t have any classroom contact until Friday. I’m very relieved to not have been!

University Gate Scanners

At the main gate to the university I am at, there are two people there with these temperature scanners. They strangely look like barcode scanners and also make a little ‘beep’ noise once they read your temperature. I tend to make a scrunched up face when they scan me because it freaks me out to have one of those pointed directly at my forehead. It’s really bizarre.

Medical Exam

I had a medical exam yesterday as a prerequisite to apply for the Foreign Expert Certificate (haha, I am an expert at being foreign!!). I had to get a lot of tests done, including an EKG, x-ray, sonogram, blood test, and physical exam. China is really thorough, apparently. So yeah… my first sonogram and first x-ray since they thought I had TB in high school. Weird stuff.

The Swine is an American Conspiracy

Apparently there is a video that is shown on Chinese flights that is basically a little cartoon about the swine. There is a visual showing the virus as arrows emanating from, oh hey, America! Forget Mexico, apparently the Swine was created by the US to take over the world. I can’t wait to see this video.

I start teaching classes this Friday, as in my tomorrow. I have two classes and hopefully have figured out a structure for the class. I got a lot of advice from some of the other teachers and basically get thrown into the fire tomorrow. And by fire, I mean a classroom of 50 Chinese freshmen in a vocational school. More details to come…

Oh and Matt is posting these until I get a proxy figured out. He’s the best, basically.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Greetings from China!

Hi everyone, this is Matt, Alison's boyfriend. She can't access Blogger for whatever reason and has tasked me to be her proxy Blogger poster person. Woo... Anyways, here she is!

Getting to China
I learned my lesson about international layovers: there can never be too much time before your flight. I missed my flight out of New York JFK airport because of a bad storm and ended up staying one more night in America than expected.
I was pretty stressed all week leading up to the flight, having to say goodbye to family and loved ones and packing up my apartment while simultaneously packing to leave for a year proved to be a tremendous task. Missing my flight was pretty much the last straw for me and I’m just glad that whole fiasco is over now.
The Wise Sage
The plus side of my being trapped on a commuter plane from Washington DC to New York City for nearly two hours was meeting this wonderful woman who had been all around the world and is currently in Afghanistan for work. I don’t really know her name but she works for a consulting company and currently assists the British equivalent of USAID in Afghanistan and was connecting through Delhi to get to Khabul.
Basically she had been all around the world, from South and Central America, to Asia, Africa, and Central Europe. She is probably in her mid to late 30’s, unmarried, and just a very wise traveler. She offered me some advice that I have definitely taken note of:
Expat Rule #1: The 6-8 Week Rule
Basically, every six to eight weeks a person living abroad should do something that is more familiar to them from home just to break the trend and “remind yourself of who you are.” This can be anything from going to a spa, checking into a hotel, or taking a small trip out of the city you are located in. Basically a change of scenery is needed to preserve mental health.
Tampon Theory of Development
When countries develop, you can always tell what stage they are in by looking in the women’s’ hygiene aisle. For example, many developing countries only have pads, or even worse, wads of cotton. Not only is this a very primitive way of handling menstrual cycles, but it also reflects upon the buying power and average income of women. Basically, these women can’t afford anything more sophisticated.
Tampons are very rarely found in developing countries because they are not only expensive, but they also carry many social stigmas about virginity and ability to be married off. The more women’s’ rights and decreased myths about virginity, the more tampons are available.
That’s my first blog post. Hopefully it gives you something to think about and I assure you that the next will be more about China and my daily musings. I just wanted to share what I learned on the plane ride over.

My Chinese word of the day: 军人  jun1ren2 (soldier) {Great word! Sadly my computer does not have Chinese character enabled and I cant access the necessary files}